Empire in Black and Gold Read Online Free PDF

interested in things martial. Each item of clothing and jewellery was conspicuously expensive, yet the overall picture was one of vulgarity.
    I should use a mirror more often , Stenwold thought wryly. He might himself own only to the white robes of a College Master, but his waist was approaching the dimensions of this merchant-lord’s, and the tide of his hair had receded so far that he shaved his head regularly now to hide its loss.
    ‘Master Gownsman and Armsman Kymon of Kes,’ said the newcomer with a flourish.
    ‘Master Townsman Inigo Paldron,’ Kymon acknowledged. Master Paldron pursed his lips and made an urgent little noise. Kymon sighed.
    ‘Master Townsman Magnate Inigo Paldron,’ he corrected. ‘Forgive me. The new titling is but a tenday old.’
    ‘I do think that, when the Assembly of the Learned spends more time debating modes of address than civic planning, something has gone seriously wrong with the world,’ Stenwold grumbled, not quite joking. ‘Just plain “Master” was always good enough for me.’
    Master Townsman Magnate Paldron’s expression showed that, in titles as in other ornament, he was unlikely ever to have more than he was happy with.
    ‘The Collegium Society of Martial Prowess recognizes your sponsored house and invites you to name your charges,’ Kymon told him.
    ‘Well, then,’ said Paldron with a broad smile. ‘Fellow Masters, I give you Seladoris of Everis,’ his broad hand singled out a slender Spider-kinden man, who stood slowly. ‘Falger Paldron, my nephew.’ A Beetle lad who seemed a year younger even than Che. ‘Adax of Tark.’ Adax remained seated. His narrowed eyes were boring into Totho across the width of the Prowess Forum. ‘And . . .’ Paldron’s contented smile grew broader still, ‘I present you with the esteemed Piraeus of Etheryon.’
    Piraeus! The last name tore through the spectators like a gale through leaves. Not a name they would have expected at some little apprentices’ house friendly. As if on cue he entered, pausing in the doorway nearest to his team-mates, a straight, slender stiletto of a man. He had been the duelling champion of the previous year with never a bout lost. So few of the Mantis-kinden ever joined Collegium’s homely little duelling society – it was a frivolous thing to them; they were above it – and Piraeus was the exception.
    ‘How much did you put out to catch him?’ Stenwold asked Paldron softly. The magnate smiled beatifically at him.
    ‘The poor lad misses his College friends, no doubt,’ he said dismissively. It was, Stenwold reflected, just another problem with the great and good of Collegium today. Give them a famine, a war, a poverty-stricken district or a child shorn of parents and they would debate the symbolism and the philosophy of intervention. Give them some competition or empty trophy and they would break every rule to parade their victories publicly through the town.
    ‘But fighting alongside Seladoris?’ Stenwold said. ‘ Alongside Spider-kinden?’
    Paldron glanced back at his team. There was indeed a pointed distance between Piraeus and the Spider youth, and neither acknowledged the other. Theirs was a racehatred with roots lost in the mists of time. It was remarkable that mere money had now built over it.
    ‘Not such a problem,’ Paldron told him. ‘Who knows, he might even end up contesting against your . . . ward .’ He said the word with a sneer barely disguised within the walls of polite conversation. Stenwold bore it stolidly, for it was hardly the first time. He glanced back at his team to see how they were taking the news. To his relief, rather than seeing them dispirited or alarmed, they were gathered in a close huddle, talking tactics.
    ‘I could take him,’ Tynisa was murmuring. ‘You know how good I am.’
    ‘We do,’ Che acknowledged. ‘And you’re not that good. We saw him fight last year. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
    ‘There’s more to fighting than jabbing